


And As The Curtains Close

by LittleMissMoriarty



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Jim Moriarty is not as immortal as it seems, Love, M/M, Real Life, carer, mormor, terminal illness, upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 07:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissMoriarty/pseuds/LittleMissMoriarty
Summary: So idk if this is going to be a thing or not but it’s an idea I have, I’m posting the short bit I’ve done so far and if people like it I’ll try to make it into a developed workThings were going smoothly. Jim’s business was flourishing, the government couldn’t touch them, the Tiger had been domesticated by the magpie and everything seemed to be in its place. Until Jim started to slow down. Slip. Fall. Slur. Seb was no doctor but something wasn’t right. What would happen as Jim began to become a prisoner of his own body? Such a brilliant mind trapped?





	And As The Curtains Close

He hadn't noticed anything amiss at first.

 

The odd glass being dropped, the occasional twitch of Jim's hand, nothing that would raise any alarm bells.

 

But then the incidents got more frequent, with Jim falling over, or suddenly losing his grip on whichever papers he was filing through which sent them flying over the floor, and Sebastian remembered one fact about his boss/partner one night just after Jim had tripped up on his foot as he was walking to the kitchen:

 

He never made mistakes.

 

_Never_.

 

Still, he kept his concern quiet, to hide that he suspected something was wrong from Jim. And, deep down, himself, because it wasn't something he wanted to think about: the idea that something could be wrong with the man he had involuntarily fallen in love with. Yes, he knew that that was soppy which was why he'd never say it out aloud, but Sebastian was in love with Jim, and didn't know what he would do without the Irishman's flirting or orders or the occasional mental breakdowns he had from time to time due to the absolute strain his mind had on him. As... desolate as it sounded, that was what Seb liked, it had been his life for the past decade or so. He wasn't a fan of letting go, even more so if it was Jim.

 

Jim, naturally, refused to believe it was anything other than something else's fault, like the floor being too slippery, or the pen had pressed against his nerves for too long because he had papers to get through for the next day. He even denied anything was wrong when his speech had slurred one night.

 

They had been sitting in the lounge, Jim on the armchair with one leg folded over the other, whilst Seb took the less dignified position of being sprawled over the sofa, with a bottle of wine on the table, two glasses on either side it. The tv was on, Jude Law crawled across the screen as a sniper in the film 'enemy at the gates'. Obviously, it had been Seb's night to choose what to watch, besides, it wasn't like they hadn't watched it at least 23 times (according to Jim anyway) already. Jim had his head perched on his palm, elbow on the armrest, with a face that screamed boredom. He frowned a bit, thinking about the multitude of times this film had been on his tv, and opened his mouth to talk to Sebastian.

 

"Sebastian, how many times have you seen this film buffore?"

 

It was ever so subtle, but Seb had been living, talking with him for so long that he had picked up on it immediately. Jim had too. He had stumbled over that 'before', his 'b' had been clumsy, his 'e' more like an oddly pronounced 'u' that had ran into the drawn out 'f' slightly. Seb saw the moment in the other's eyes when it happened: a split second of confusion that melted away before he could blink. It was unnerving, to say the least. When had Jim ever been confused like that? It wasn't just regular bewilderment, it was fearful.

 

Jim had been scared for a moment.

 

And that scared Sebastian.

 

He looked at Jim carefully from his horizontal position, brow frowning in concern, and slowly shuffled up to rest his back against the arm rest of the sofa as he lowered the volume ever so slightly.

 

"Jim," Seb started cautiously, "You ok?"

 

Jim swallowed slightly, mouth tightening as if to reset the muscles so that they wouldn't mess up again. He gave Seb a look, brow arched in the middle with his eyes wide. It basically said 'Um, are you stupid or something?’

 

"Yyyeah..." He said slowly, head moving down a bit as he talked with his eyes still on Seb, "Obviously I'm _ok_.”

 

“Had a bit too much wine?”

 

“ _That’s_ _rich_ coming from _you_.”

 

Seb looked over at the bottle. Half of it was drained, and Jim had only helped himself to about 1/3 of the damage.

 

“Yeah... well out of the two of us who has a longer history with substance abuse?”

 

“Are we talking about alcohol or something of the more powdered sorts?” Jim raised an eyebrow at Seb, a finger suggestively brushing the bottom of his nose.

 

“Okay. You got me there.”

 

The room went quiet again for a few minutes, well, the room being the atmosphere between Jim and Seb, the film still played on but for some reason Seb wasn’t really paying attention to it anymore. His view was focused on the back of the dark head belonging to Jim. He had the feeling that the other man knew that he had his eyes trained on him, and he also had the feeling that he was deciding to ignore his stare because of the incident that had just occurred. Everything was done for a reason with Jim. After a couple more minutes Seb hit pause on the remote and got up from his sprawled position to stand on his feet, hovering there, silently for a second or so before padding over quietly to behind him, the pads of his feet scraping against the wooden floor of the apartment. All the while Jim feigned oblivion.

 

“...Jim.” Seb gently called as casually as he could, a hand sliding down the other’s front.

 

No reply.

 

“ _Jim_.” He repeated, this time more firmly.

 

“ _What_?”

 

“...What... What was that just then?”

 

Jim’s face executed a look of vague confusion, and he shrugged his shoulders loosely as he continued to stare forwards at the screen.

 

“What was what?”

 

“Don’t pull that bullshit on me. What was that slur?”

 

“It was my mouth trying to get over the sheer boredom of watching Jude law pretend that he knows how to hold a sniper rifle properly.”

 

“ _Jim_.”

 

Seb tightened his lips with a tired exhale. Jim was being defensive. He knew something was wrong too and that was why he was being so dismissive, more dismissive than usual. Seb had learnt the subtle nuances that came with living with Jim Moriarty, he knew the small signs and body language that was intricate as much as it was almost impossible to learn.

 

“I don’t know what you want out of me Sebastian other than the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth.”

 

“That’s all I want.”

 

“Well there you go then.”

 

“Don’t you think that it’s a bit c-“

 

“Sebastian would you kindly do me the favour of _pissing_ off and stop spreading your hypochondriac behaviour to me. I’m fine and _that’s_ _that_.” Jim snapped, his voice low and definitely not amused.

 

Sebastian knew when it was time to bail, and this was around then. He didn’t want to rock the boat enough to make it explode so he lifted his hand off of Jim’s shoulder in a surrender and retreated back to his sofa. 


End file.
